Here’s how to understand Trump’s Mitt Romney subplot.

Trump has turned the fight to be his secretary of state into something you might expect on The Bachelorette. With two frontrunners (Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani) and a dark horse (Bob Corker), Trump and his team have been teasing out developments over the last ten days. Will Trump make nice with Romney or will he force Romney to make a humiliating public apology first? Will the debate within Trump’s team be eclipsed by the supposed behind-the-scenes fight between outsiders who hate Romney and GOP insiders who desperately want to add one of their own to the cabinet? Will anyone care that neither Romney nor Giuliani have zero meaningful foreign policy experience?

Even for Trump, the drama here seems canned. Take campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, whose new role seems to be “go on TV and act as a surrogate for Trump’s base.” Last week, she broke with tradition and weighed in on the transition publicly:

Receiving deluge of social media & private comms re: Romney Some Trump loyalists warn against Romney as sec of state https://t.co/HDtpjeJTc3

Then she hit the Sunday shows and did more of the same, telling CNN’s Dana Bash that Trump’s supporters would feel “betrayed” if he picked Romney. She added, “I’m all for party unity, but I’m not sure we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position.” She said the same thing, more or less, to ABC’s Martha Raddatz. And on Monday, Trump’s on-again, off-again BFF Joe “Morning Joe” Scarborough reported that Trump was “furious” with Conway over her comments and that, per a source, “Kellyanne went rogue at Donald Trump’s expense at the worst possible time.”

The question of whether or not Conway “went rogue” is very much an open one. Asked by Raddatz if Trump “wanted her” to tweet about his base’s feelings about Romney, Conway refused to answer. But it is telling that no one bothered to pull Conway from the Sunday shows. When it comes to explaining Trump’s motivations ineptitude is always a fair guess, but the drama here is so phony and familiar that the most plausible option is that all of this is for the ratings, so to speak.

None of this has anything to do with American foreign policy—it’s drama for drama’s sake, which is something we better get used to. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t noteworthy. Whoever Trump choses, Conway has set it up so that he will either be seen as repudiating his base or rewarding it. The result of the pageant will tell us how much Trump thinks he needs his base.

March 19, 2018

A huge study debunks several theories for the racial wealth gap.

The Equality of Opportunity Project has published a sweeping report investigating the stubborn income gap between black and white adult men. Tracking 20 million people born between 1978 and 1983, researchers found that, for white boys, wealthy parents predict a wealthy adulthood, but the same is not true for black boys. They are much more likely to fall into poverty in adulthood. As The New York Timeswrites, “Black men raised in the top 1 percent—by millionaires—were as likely to be incarcerated as white men raised in households earning about $36,000.”

Armed with reams of data, the study appears to underscore what more anecdotal evidence would suggest: that race—not class, not family structure, not education—is holding back African-American men, who are uniquely subjected to stereotypes of violence. Notably, the study found that black and white girls from similarly wealthy backgrounds earned similar incomes as adults.

In this instance, systemic racism works in a gendered way. Black boys are more likely to be disciplined in school and are more likely to be incarcerated as they age. Mass incarceration is a racialized problem, disproportionally locking up black men, pulling them from their neighborhoods through racist policing and sentencing, and ultimately disrupting the building of wealth.

The study found that results only narrowed in places with fewer displays of racial bias.

The few neighborhoods that met this standard were in areas that showed less discrimination in surveys and tests of racial bias. They mostly had low poverty rates. And, intriguingly, these pockets—including parts of the Maryland suburbs of Washington, and corners of Queens and the Bronx—were the places where many lower-income black children had fathers at home. Poor black boys did well in such places, whether their own fathers were present or not.

These findings suggest that the burden of equality does not lie on the black family, as some have suggested, but on the forces that shape neighborhoods. Boys, generally, and low-income and nonwhite kids, particularly, benefit from a mentor who is the same gender and race who understands the child’s situation and social position.

The study concludes that reducing racial bias is a must if we want to make sure black youth can escape the poverty trap. It requires an active approach lacking in current policy.

There’s coal waste in Puerto Rico’s groundwater.

Six months after Hurricane Maria slammed into the U.S. island territory, 11 percent of residents still don’t have power; the poverty rate has increased from 44.3 percent to 52.3 percent; and 40 to 60 percent of small businesses have permanently closed. Now, a joint report from La Perla del Sur and the Center for Investigative Journalism has found “signs of radioactivity, in addition to traces of arsenic, chromium, selenium and molybdenum” in the groundwater surrounding a coal-fired power plant in Guayama, a southern city of 42,000 people.

We’ve called attention to this plant before. It’s owned by AES Puerto Rico and contains a five-story-tall pile of toxic coal ash, which sat uncovered during Maria’s 140-mph winds and intense rainfall. Environmental advocates worried that the storm caused ash—which containshigh levels of arsenic, mercury, and chromium—to blow off the pile or seep into groundwater.

The joint report confirms those fears, revealing thata study of AES’s groundwater conducted by federal Environmental Protection Agency “shows that the ash mountain is releasing large amounts of chemicals into the groundwater,” and that the groundwater is flowing away from the power plant and toward the sea.

Since the story was published, Puerto Rico’s environmental quality board has given AES ten days to hand over all the data behind the groundwater study, threatening to fine the company $25,000 each day until it does. If AES refuses, the board said it may order the company to “cease and desist” operations. But AES provides 17 percent of the island’s electricity. Does the government stop a coal company from polluting the water, or cut off power to thousands of homes? The people of Puerto Rico lose either way.

Is there a serial bomber in Austin, Texas?

The city experienced its fourth bombing in 17 days on Sunday evening. The bomb injured two men in their twenties, and city police have asked the bomber to reach out and reveal his demands. Last night’s victims are expected to live, but the bombings have claimed two lives already: Draylen Mason, 17, and Anthony Stephan House, 39, died after package bombs were delivered to their homes. Mason’s grandmother was also injured, and a fourth person, Esperanza Herrara, was injured in a separate blast.

Mason and House are black, fueling speculation that the bombings could be the work of white supremacists. The Washington Post reports:

The first two bombs killed black people—a 39-year-old construction worker and a 17-year-old high school student—related to prominent members of Austin’s African American community who were also close personal friends. The third bomb seriously injured a 75-year-old Hispanic woman, but it was addressed to a different home and apparently exploded when she was carrying it, according to two people familiar with the case.

Last night’s victims, however, are white. Police say the bomb that injured them had been placed by the side of the road, then triggered by a tripwire. It’s not certain, then, that Sunday’s bomb is linked to previous bombings, or that the injured men were even the bomb’s intended targets, but police are operating under the assumptions that all four bombs are linked until new information demonstrates otherwise.

Congressional Republicans are failing the Mueller test.

Over the weekend, President Trump unleashed his most direct assault yet against special counsel Robert Mueller. On Saturday, one of Trump’s lawyers, John Dowd, called for an end to the Mueller probe—breaking with earlier statements, in which Trump’s legal team had affirmed their full cooperation with Mueller. “I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier,” Dowd said.

And on Sunday morning, aided by the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Trump attacked the Mueller probe.

The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!

Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?

Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added...does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!

In these tweets, Trump is doing three things. First, he’s using McCabe’s firing to discredit both McCabe and former FBI Director James Comey, whose firing is presumably being looked into by Mueller—obstruction of justice is one of the most likely charges Trump could face. Second, he’s tying McCabe and Comey—dismissed as partisan and corrupt—to the Mueller probe, whose findings he is prematurely trying to discredit.

But the third thing is the most important. Trump is launching a trial balloon to congressional Republicans to see what he can get away with. Trump’s previous moves against the Russia investigation have been met with an insistence from a variety of Republicans on the Hill that any move against Mueller would be an enormously costly one for the president. But thus far, Republicans—who have increasingly made their peace with Trump since the passage of the $1.5 trillion tax bill in December—have largely been silent, suggesting that they might rally to the president if he decides to move against the special counsel.

March 16, 2018

Can drug dealers really be executed?

The White House’s plan for fighting the opioid epidemic will propose giving the death penalty to “some drug dealers,” Politicoreported Thursday. President Donald Trump is an enthusiastic proponent of the idea, and of capital punishment in general. A survey of key House Republicans by the Weekly Standard found that many of them would be receptive to Trump’s proposal, at least in theory.

It’s hard to assess whether Trump’s plan is constitutional without knowing the precise legislative text. In the 2008 caseKennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court effectively abolished capital punishment for crimes that don’t result in the victim’s death. However, the justices explicitly said the ruling didn’t address whether the death penalty for “crimes against the state,” which they defined as “treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity,” are permissible. Depending on the proposal’s scope, that last category could provide federal prosecutors with legal cover.

Trump’s proposal would be constrained by the same trends. The lengthy appeals process alone guarantees that no defendants sentenced under it would be executed during his term, or probably even under his successor. Instead, its greatest impact would be to show the system for what it is: a creaky, glacial enterprise that imposes tremendous costs, moral and otherwise, on American society and delivers virtually nothing in return.

FEMA is not preparing for “climate change.”

Last year was among the most expensive years in the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief program, due to record-breaking hurricanes and wildfires that scientists say were made worse by climate change. But the agency has removed that very term from its strategic plan for the next four years.

It’s long been the unspoken policy of the Trump administration to erase references to climate change from government documents. Vox reported in December that the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Transportation “have all had websites or press releases scrubbed of references to humanity’s role in rising average temperatures.” Now, it appears, this policy applies to the agency in charge of protecting Americans from climate disasters.

FEMA insists it is still preparing for such disasters, and implies that the causes don’t matter. “It is evident that this strategic plan fully incorporates future risks from all hazards regardless of cause,” FEMA Public Affairs Director William Booher said in an email. “Building upon the foundation established by FEMA’s previous two Strategic Plans, this plan commits the agency, and the nation, to taking proactive steps to increasing pre-disaster investments in preparedness and mitigation.”

But preparedness and mitigation are not enough to keep Americans safe as the atmosphere and ocean gradually warm. If government agencies don’t tackle the cause—carbon emissions from fossil fuels—the impacts, in many places, will become too extreme to adapt to. FEMA will bleed money preparing for, and responding to, more hurricanes like Harvey and Maria. And much of the blame will lie with conservatives who are triggered by two little, truthful words.

Trump is systematically removing the guardrails in his cabinet.

Over the past ten days, President Trump’s economic adviser, Gary Cohn, has resigned; his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, was fired over Twitter; and his national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, is expected to be moved out of the White House and into a four-star military role. McMaster—whose ouster has been rumored for months—would be gone already, except the White House is concerned about the optics of losing another cabinet member.

The reason for the delay in McMaster’s firing? Trumpworld wants him to find a soft landing — like a four star promotion — to prove that not everyone who serves in his White House suffers severe reputational damage. https://t.co/zSSjMfylzQpic.twitter.com/NbLj9d8s7a

Cohn has been replaced by Larry Kudlow, a cable news pundit; Tillerson by Mike Pompeo, the hawkish CIA director. The leading candidates to replace McMaster are John Bolton, who has publicly pushed the United States to make a preemptive strike against North Korea, and Fox & Friends co-host Pete Hegseth.

These changes suggest a president who is convinced that he has grown into the job and, more troublingly, has come to resent the numerous guardrails that were erected around him to protect the country (and the world) from his erratic instincts. Trump is remaking his cabinet—filling it with hawks and cable news pundits—into his own image. The triumvirate of “adults in the room”—Tillerson, McMaster, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis—has been neutralized. Trump may finally have the cabinet that he wants: One that won’t stand in his way.

Stormy Daniels says she’s been threatened with physical violence.

And at the end of the interview, Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinskiasked—almost off-the-cuff—what ended up being a very revealing question about Daniels: “Was she threatened in any way?”

“Yes,” Avenatti replied.

“Was she threatened physical harm?” Brzezinski followed up.

“Yes,” the lawyer replied.

“Oh, wow,” co-host Joe Scarborough reacted, while MSNBC’s John Heilemann asked her to continue the questioning.

Daniels is suing Trump to free herself from a non-disclosure agreement that she says he never signed, and 60 Minutes is slated to run a tell-all interview with Daniels on March 25. Her attorney recently said that six other women have come to him with stories of affairs with Donald Trump. Avenatti’s claims aren’t outlandish: Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, has a history of threatening Trump’s enemies, as NBC News’s Brandy Zadrozny reported on Twitter:

March 15, 2018

Why Mueller is subpoenaing the Trump Organization (because of course he is).

The New York Timesreported on Thursday that the special counsel in the Russia investigation is seeking records from President Donald Trump’s company. While the subpoena’s scope “was not clear,” the requested documents include “some related to Russia.” I would hope so.

It’s certainly newsworthy that Mueller is taking this step. But it tells us little about the investigation, its progress, or its potential outcome. The first rule of Mueller’s inquiry is that we know less than we think we know about it. His apparently airtight operation—an impressive feat in leaky Washington—is keeping the president, the press, and the American people largely in the dark for now.

Not all of the Russia investigation’s roads run through Trump’s business empire, but many do. Questions remain on the breadth and depth of the president’s business relationships with Russian oligarchs and his three-decade-long interest in Russian real-estate projects. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, for example, claimed that the Trump Organization was “actively negotiating” with a Russian bank under U.S. sanctions for a potential business venture there. Trump excommunicated Steve Bannon from his inner circle after the former White House chief strategist raised the specter of money-laundering charges to journalist Michael Wolff.

A potential hazard in this information-starved atmosphere is reading too much into certain events and not paying enough attention to others—especially where Mueller is concerned. Here’s a good rule of thumb whenever there’s a new report about the special counsel’s latest move: Based on what we already know about the investigation, would it be more surprising if Mueller wasn’t doing it?

What do Susan B. Anthony’s List and Nancy Pelosi have in common?

Dan Lipinski, it turns out. The anti-choice Democrat is running for re-election in Illinois’ 3rd District; he faces a primary challenge from a pro-choice woman, Marie Newman. Pelosi endorsed Lipinksi over Newman, and so has Susan B. Anthony’s List, an anti-choice group. McClatchy reports:

SBA List has dispatched 70 canvassers to the Illinois 3rd Congressional District and made a “six-figure investment” in digital ads and a mail campaign ahead of the Tuesday primary, according to an official with the group. Lipinski faces a fierce challenge from Marie Newman, a progressive advocate who has made the incumbent’s opposition to abortion rights central to her campaign.

Lipinski also voted against the Affordable Care Act and opposes marriage equality. Pelosi, who has previously decried “purity tests” applied to Democratic candidates, endorsed Lipinski on March 1. That pits her against EMILY’s List, the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, SEIU and other members of her own party.

Polling shows Newman in a dead heat with Lipinski—meaning that Pelosi passed up a chance to support a viable, pro-choice candidate over an anti-gay, anti-choice incumbent in trouble.